


what is coming has to wait until the mind quits looking

by cashewdani



Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: F/M, Undercover as Married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashewdani/pseuds/cashewdani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike Vervardi apparently twists his wedding band when he feels like kissing his wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what is coming has to wait until the mind quits looking

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'ed. Title comes from "The Original Sun Recording" by Fleda Brown.

She’d had him stay up late the night before, bringing snacks to the bed from the minibar that the bureau is going to pay for so he could watch The Godfather for the first time. 

They’re married on this mission, he and Charlie. Mr. and Mrs. Vervardi are supposedly in California for their honeymoon, checking out if they might like to become bicoastal, but also looking into some potential new contacts for her Mafia cousin’s drug division.

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen this movie,” she’d commented for possibly the ninth time. “We used to watch this every Christmas Eve before Midnight mass.”

“Every Christmas Eve?”

“I was already having nightmares about a horse head in my bed before I went to school, Mikey. How else you think I got to be so edgy?” She’d smiled at him then, coy and teasing, in her little shorts with all her makeup washed off. “God, I’d kill for a decent cannoli.”

Mike Vervardi apparently twists his wedding band when he feels like kissing his wife.

He’s doing it again, watching her dance at this club that’s all bass and flashes of light. It feels predatory, staring at Charlie, documenting the way the new dress she bought moves in harmony with each gyration. She’s writhing against a girl whose name he thinks is Carla and he’s supposed to be listening in case Marco and JD start discussing their cocaine hookup, but he can’t focus. Everything at the moment is Charlie and the way her hair has gone damp around her forehead.

JD had insisted on bottle service and he can still hear Charlie’s little giggle she’d pressed into his throat as the first round of shots was distributed. “Oh, baby, we’re going to have fun tonight.”

He’s had three, maybe four, drinks at this point and he feels flushed and a little heavy in the limbs. Confused why the girl who yells at him about his smile in the morning or his habit of straightening the living room seems like some creature he’s seeing for the first time.

She rubs one of her hands across her breasts, down her torso, and he thinks how he’s comfortable with Charlie. How she’s beautiful in a way that doesn’t make him feel tongue tied. That he’s already watched her shave her legs through a crack in the bathroom door.

Carla must say something, do something, that makes Charlie laugh, really laugh, because she’s throwing her head back, neck all long and tan. He turns his ring another three rotations in the time it takes the girls to make their way back to their booth, their legs wobbly in their super sized high heels.

They look like drunken baby giraffes, leaning into one another, tipsy on techno and tequila, new best friends.

“So, we made a bet,” Carla says, sliding next to Marco and stealing his drink. “I get a hundred dollars if you’ll actually get up and dance with me.”

Marco scoffs, but Mike still asks, “You’re paying a girl a hundred dollars to dance with her boyfriend?” trying to sound incredulous, like it’s actually his money she’s spending. “Maybe your dad was right about keeping you on a shorter leash.”

She leans down low, right in his face so he can see how white her teeth are, balancing her weight on his thigh. “You know I always get what I want.” Charlie grabs his wrist then, tugging, and he feels his pulse and the music sync up against the pressure of her thumb. “My man’s going to dance with me for free!” she announces to the table, leading him away from Carla pouting while rubbing at Marco’s chest and JD rolling his eyes.

“You getting anything?” she asks, all business in her voice while she’s moving like a serpent right in front of him.

“Nah, I think tonight’s a bust on the information front. It’s too loud in here.” Which she knows because he’s practically screaming at her.

“Dance with me anyway, I love this song.”

He puts his palms up against her hips, lets her grind her ass against him until there’s not enough air left in the room.

And then he kisses her, feeling lightheaded and overheated, because he’s her husband and they’re newlyweds but mostly for the way it had felt when he’d woken up this morning with her foot resting against his calf.

She’s arching backwards into it, still not quite tall enough even in her designer shoes and he snakes his hand across her abdomen, pulling her closer. When she moans, he feels it right in his dick. It’s for show he reminds a much smaller piece of himself than the one that’s assuring him there’s no other way for this to go right now.

But then she’s tilting away, her hair sticking to his neck, and he feels for a second like he’s a windshield right before it shatters. Like he’s only made out of cracks.

“We should go,” she exhales, breathless, and they shouldn’t, the night’s still early and who knows what kind of stuff is going to happen at the afterparty, but...

“Yeah. Yeah, we should go.” His words are coming out fast even though his tongue feels gummed up.

She drags him back to their booth by the buckle on his belt and he doesn’t even know what she says to them. He just accepts the leers the other men bestow upon him as she reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, throwing their share amidst the empty glasses.

And then they’re out on the sidewalk, the breeze making him shiver even though he isn’t cold, even though he’s still sweating.

Charlie’s holding his hand as they walk past the people waiting to get in, the smokers, the line for the food truck. Hers feels smaller than it should for all he’s seen her do with it.

She uses her other arm to hail a cab, spills off their temporary address like she says it every day and drags him into the backseat.

They haven’t even really merged back into traffic yet when she’s kissing him again. He doesn’t know if she’s drunk or just pretending to be or maybe something a little in the middle. And he wants to ask if this is because someone might be watching them still, or so they look disheveled enough if one of Marco’s guys is waiting back at the lobby of the hotel, but it would require him to stop kissing her.

Her mouth is sweet, she’d been chasing with pomegranate juice all night, and he’s never going to be able to touch the stuff again without thinking of this moment. The one where she slides onto his lap, all quick breaths and body heat. He can see the moisture on her collarbones, feel it beading up on his own skin, as one of those rinky dink, half-hearted fans tries to cool them down.

He’s pawing at her like a teenager, like he used to do with girls in the back of his mother’s car in high school, out by the track at night, after the lights had been turned off. With only a half hour left til curfew, he’d try to make the most of it. Have something that would last him, that he could hold onto until the next time his parents let him have the keys.

And they might not be seventeen, but he still knows there’s a deadline on this. There’s only four more days before the Vervardis are supposed to be on a plane back to LaGuardia. 

Four more days where it’s okay to be a little bit in love with the girl down the hall.

He pulls on her dark hair, getting his fingers tangled, smelling the hairspray and perfume and sweat coming off her.

His skin feels the way static sounds.

Her tongue on him, against him, tasting him outside and in, there’s no mission. No FBI. No case files. There’s just him and her in the back of this cab. Him and her dancing to sounds autotuned as closely as they can get to sex. Him and her asleep in a room with the lights on, a movie’s theme song on repeat. 

His ring catches in one of her curls and he muffles a curse into her shoulder as she whimpers.

He kisses the noise out of her a second time, mouth hot and open and panting, since he can’t adjust the band and stop himself.


End file.
